Letter: Right and Left

I was enjoying Tim Blagg’s piece in The Recorder subtitled “science and religion can get along.” Then came the last paragraph, seemingly out of the blue. He criticized the Right, in recent years, for “moving farther and farther from the Left.” I’m not sure if Mr. Blagg was referring to the religious or the political Right and Left; there are many differences between them and within them.

My (religious) Right, today as always, believes in the Holy Bible that hasn’t changed for thousands of years. The (religious) Left looks elsewhere for the origin of life and all its meaning, and is still looking. My Right has not moved and we don’t “force teachers to equate Genesis with Darwin” as you said. No way do we see “a book” holding a candle to The Book.

Speaking of writers and such, famous philosopher Bertrand Russell, a leftist in his own right (pun intended), disagrees with Mr. Blagg and myself in his “Why I Am Not a Christian” speech, given March 6, 1927: “Science ... has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion, against the churches and against the opposition of the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations” (perhaps his use of “forced” is a euphemism). Galileo was not threatened and disowned by the Holy Bible, but by zealots in his own church, believing falsely, that they were acting on God’s behalf; a lot of that went on in those days as now.

Scientist Carl Sagan told us that: “The cosmos is all there is, all there ever was, and all there ever will be,” but Albert Einstein and others discovered that the universe is not static but expanding. The Big Bang Theory further supports that and is also friendly with the beginning of creation, thereby narrowing the gap between science and religion. Modern science says the universe began billions of years ago; Genesis 1:1 says only: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Must we fight over that?

The battle, then, is not between religion and science, but between the zealots on both sides of the aisle who have their own agendas and prejudices at heart. You know the type, “those that would have you believe ...”

I have no doubt that "[Your] (religious) Right, today as always, believes in the Holy Bible that hasn’t changed for thousands of years."
As acknowledging plain facts do not seem to be your forte, I only note in passing that this statement is untrue on several levels. The bible not only has not existed for thousands (or, indeed one) thousand years, few of it's component parts have, and none have remained unchanged. There is not even any particular way to arbitrate which of the differing versions should be considered more authentic than the others.
The main error in your opinion isn't on of mistakes; it's the fact that even if the statement were true, it wouldn't matter a jot (or tittle). The fact that people have been wrong for thousands of years does not make them any less wrong.